Keep on thinking….

martial arts

I’ve been training mma for about 2 months now. Nothing serious, just 1 or 2 sessions a week. Before this, as my regulars will know, I trained san shou. So my background is mainly stand-up fighting. However I felt I needed to broaden my view on fighting and competing, so mma was the next logical step.

I’ve just agreed to take part in an interclub fight in December. Now, interclub fights are NOT big news. Shouldn’t be anything major, but I’m having serious doubts about my abilities. Am I really THAT good to step into the ring? I know I can handle a stand up fight, even if I lose, I’ll be able to walk out without too bad a beating. But my ground work is atrocious and I’m very worried about being on the bad end of the dreaded “ground and pound“.

I’m sure the organisers of this event will match each person with an opponent of similar weight and (more importantly I think) similar experience, so I shouldn’t be facing anyone who has 25 fights under their belt. But then there is no guarantee of that. It’s all too easy to say “this is my first fight” while trying to hide your UFC championship belt.

I’m sure some people will say not to fight if I have any doubts, and they’d probably be right. But I also REALLY REALLY REALLY want to compete. I’m not in it for the fighting or beating down on someone. I’m in it for the competition, to see if I’m good enough. And the only way I can do that, is to fight.

So I’m in a quandary. I guess I have 8-9 weeks in which to make my mind up (to give time to cancel I mean) and in the mean time, I guess I train as much as I can, cover the bare basics, get my cardio up and not let my doubts control me.

I had my first san da tournament yesterday. I’ve been building up to it for a while now, as you may have seen from my previous post and I think it went quite well. I got a silver medal, which for my first outing, wasn’t too bad going.

The tournament was tagged as being “A Novice San Shou Fight Day”, basically meaning that only people with 3 fights or less could enter. The problem with this was that the organisers left a loophole: Sure, you couldn’t compete with more than 3 fights, but you could have been training for years and still compete!! This little detail became apparent in a few bouts, most notably one of my team mates gold medal fight. He has been training for around 3 months, his opponent………….. about 3 years! My friend put on a great show, really fought his hardest and never backed down, but the other guys skill level was too great and he forced a ref stoppage. Really soured the whole deal for me.

As for me, I had to compete against one club’s instructor (he hadn’t fought before, so qualified!!) for my first round fight. He was a big guy and I’ve never sparred with anyone my own weight before. I wasn’t used to throwing people my own size and it really showed during the fight:

I got the victory here. Gassed in the second round, but pulled it back in the third.

I then had about 30 minutes rest before my final fight. This was against a guy from the same club as my previous fight. He was a bit different a fighter, much more lithe and looking to kick, which is how I like it! I thought the first round was his, then the second round was mine. The judges disagreed and awarded the lot to him. I was FUMING!! I felt totally cheated. I’ve since looked back at the video and I think both rounds were much closer than I originally thought.

I still stand by my call that it should have gone to a third round and I was cheated from the gold, but I’m so very proud of my performance and my whole club’s performance! 2 silvers and 2 bronze medals out of a potential 6, remembering none of us had ever fought before and we all but 2 had less than 7 months training (I’m on 7 months myself). Well done team Wutan!

The time has come. My first San da tournament has arrived. Well, I say arrived, it’s in November. It’s a novices tournament so I shouldn’t come up against any amazing fighters that will decimate me and my coach thinks I’m more than ready. Just one problem really…… The wife don’t want me to fight!

As I play rugby, this weekend is going to be a tiring one and I’m not sure how she’ll take it as it’ll mean saturday rugby and Sunday San da. Which doesn’t leave much time for family. This should be ok cause I’ll take some time off work. Just not sure how I’ll approach the situation, let alone tell her I’m fighting!!

I have to do this though. Come April, the British championships are taking place and my coach thinks I’ve a good chance, so this tournament will be great experience for me. Just need to persuade the mrs that San da isn’t as violent as mma and I’ll probably get more hurt playing rugby.

Wish me luck. Anyone fancy coming to watch, drop me a line for details. Support is MORE than welcome!!